Brian

Each of these slave narratives all seem to be similar. Each narrative is from the perspectives of slaves that were slaves for a long time, long meaning 20 years or so. It seems though, at first glance, that Annie L. Burton’s will be very different from the others because her’s is from her childhood experience as a slave. I also think that she was a slave shorter then all the other slave narrative choices. Annie L. Burton’s slave narrative looks to be the most interesting of all the slave narrative’s that we have to choose from and I am looking forward to reading it for this assignment and I am hoping to be correct in my impression that this narrative will be more interesting for the fact that it seems so different from the rest.

In class today we talked about the war and what was going to happen in it. The thing that i found extremely stupid about the war though is that the President cannot figure out what he will do in this situation. We read this article that stated some ideas on the issue of what to do and the President has already dismissed these set of ideas. He has shown nothing towards having any plan what to do next only that he will announce what he will do in January. I think that the President needs to make a decision soon because this entire war is affecting so many people. First it’s affecting us, Iraq, and then the surrounding countries. I think that the president needs to make a decision. The other thing that we talked about in class was Dick Chainey’s company Haliburten. Haliburten is a business all about gas, and selling it. They are making a huge amount of money, but not for the U.S. it’s for the company and one of the main customers is the U.S. army which they are now selling gas to at about 22$ a gallon, where it already is. This is an odd situation seeing as how Dick Chainey is leading this company and is also the Vice-President, making him a questionable figure. But im pretty sure all of his credibilty went down the drain when he shot his “friend” in the face so who’s going to rely on him anyway? The final and worst issue of this war is that its been blinding us from how much debt we have accumulated over this time period of 4 years. 13 trillion dollars, and we add to it each day spending 1 billion dollars in Iraq. This is an immense amount of money and I believe that we would need to stop this war now to even have a chance at paying off this debt quickly, which, in all likelihood seems impossible. All of these issues, their center focal point, is the war, and thats what keeps them together. So in conclusion, Bush needs to make a decision fast and hopefully it will be one towards the direction of ending the war to help with these problems and focus on more pressing matters about other countries that need help, including ours.

http://www.cnn.com/2006/US/12/12/racism.poll/index.html

its a poll that was taken to see how many people thought that there is still racism among americans and how many people actually think there is, if they consider themselves racist and if they consider others racist. Very interesting.

I think that satire is so popular because it usually takes on issues that are just not funny at all and turns them into jokes, making people completely surprised and caught off guard at how funny these subjects can be. In this first satire reading, Jonathan Swift makes us aware of people who think eating children are ok and that it would solve Irelands problems. The other thing that makes satire so funny though and so popular is that it actually, while making fun of issues, uncovers them more, and almost helps in creating a solution to that problem. That is what makes something satire and why it is so popular, but the reason that things like “Borat” are satire and things like “Scary Movie” are not is because “Borat” actually has a point, addresses real issues and makes you laugh uncontrollably, but “Scary Movie” is just supposed to be funny, basically makes fun of other movies and people who have done, or are doing stupid things. Their is no real point to “Scary Movie” but in “Borat” Sacha Baron Cohen is trying to show us some of the problems in American. “Scary Movie” tries to show us problems with Dr. Phil. There is a difference in what the two movies address and in the way they go about doing it. Personally, I find satire hilarious, and sometimes informative, like in “The Daily Show with Jon Stewart”, “Mind of Mencia” and in “Borat.” Each of these i found funny, but not pointless. So I think satire is a good thing because it helps people realize some of their mistakes, the mistakes of others and how to fix them.